> Do we wish to > > 1. eventually move the DNS towards UTF8/16 OR > 2. do we want to stay with ASCII(ACE) for the rest of our lives? it's a false dichotomy. first, there are probably some purposes for which identifiers (including DNS names) should stay ASCII (and not even 10646 encoded as ASCII) for the forseeable purpose. there are other purposes for which IDNs are useful. second, "ASCII for the rest of our lives" is a mischaracterization. IDNA allows applications to accept and present IDNs in native form, without requiring all applications and infrastructure to upgrade before IDNs can be used. IDNA is designed to maximize the rate at which IDNs can be deployed. users don't care whether IDN queries are encoded on the wire. they only care about whether IDNs work for them. IDNA puts the user in a position to determine whether IDNs work for him - a UTF-8 everywhere approache forces him to wait for everybody else to adopt IDNs before he can use them. Keith